


two souls into one flesh

by streetlightsky



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 03:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9958673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetlightsky/pseuds/streetlightsky
Summary: To say the least, Jemma was displeased to find out her parents had sold her soul to Hydra. Literally. In exchange for a hefty sum and a secure social standing, her individuality and ability to choose had been taken away from her in one fell swoop. Years of genius and work didn’t even register on their radar. No, what they were after was far more mundane and intangible.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'soulbond'.

To say the least, Jemma was displeased to find out her parents had sold her soul to Hydra. Literally. In exchange for a hefty sum and a secure social standing, her individuality and ability to choose had been taken away from her in one fell swoop. Years of genius and work didn’t even register on their radar. No, what they were after was far more mundane and intangible.

When the ink on the contract dried—the indelible and irrevocable seal of her fate, handed over to mysterious and menacing men—she couldn’t stop the bitterness that rose with the bile in her throat. How repulsive, she thought, that such an exchange not only occurred in this day and age but also was common enough to happen to her.

Her life was not hers anymore. Anything she did, anywhere she went, and anyone she interacted with would be under Hydra’s approval and surveillance. Of course, their first order of business once she was officially their property was to cash in on their deal and determine her usefulness in its most fundamental form.

Even at Hydra, she couldn’t escape the compatibility test.

Jemma remembered sitting through those extensive surveys on the first day of school every year—the insane number of questions, the curious but kind expression on the proctor’s face, and the constant wonder of whether or not checking yes to boxes asking about her beliefs in marriage would actually lead her closer to finding a match.

Dr. Lingenfelter administered another kind of exam for Hydra. Strapped to a scary chair in a dark room, Jemma occasionally forgot to breathe as they ran through a list of vastly different questions while her brainwaves and oxygen consumption and a whole slew of other things were monitored.

“Define the word seductive,” the impassive woman on the other side of the computer asked. Jemma blanched before rambling over her answer.

“What is more important, a partner who always works according to his or her plan or a partner who changes his or her plan according to the moment’s need?

“What is the ideal period of time between marriage and the birth of a couple’s first biological child?”

Jemma wondered how much Hydra had paid her parents because at this rate, she wouldn’t be of much use in this department. Maybe disastrous results would place her in another field where her brain would be put to good use. Or maybe they would just let her go and give her back her dignity.

Walking out of the interrogation room, she saw a line of men and women against the wall waiting for their name to be called—the same look of fear and anticipation staring back at her over and over until the elevator doors separated her from the scene.

Jemma swallowed down the unfortunate truth; they were never going to let her go.

 

 

 

“Name?”

Jemma stared at Dr. Lingenfelter, at the manila folder she held close to her face, and then at the stacks of others lying on the table. Apparently, all the software and engineering efforts had been put into their match test.

“Jemma Simmons.”

“Date of birth?”

“September 11, 1986.”

It had been more than a day since her big exam, and Jemma didn’t know what to expect, how long she would wait until she received any semblance of results from these inscrutable people. She wasn’t even sure what kind of outcomes they generated.

Whatever happened, she hoped it would be worthwhile. She hoped her parents were happy with their money and prominence because their daughter’s future now hung in the balance. All the energy and resources they had spent for her PhDs could be minimized to two negligent lines on a piece of paper.

Dr. Lingenfelter handed her one of those pieces of paper, and her countenance was as unreadable as ever when she uttered, “You’ve been matched.”

 

 

 

There was a stampede in her chest—a loud thumping against her rib cage ever since the two-minute meeting with the good doctor ended with a resounding discovery. The booming reverberated in her ears, and her heart raced faster with each tentative step she took towards the designated room. Jemma had never been this nervous or terrified, not even as a thirteen-year-old defending her first dissertation or during that horrible bicycle incident ten months ago.

Nothing in her life could have prepared her for the moment her shaky hand opened the door and revealed the human being deemed appropriate for her as best as science could. And when the man inside turned his head to look at her, Jemma stopped breathing altogether.

She didn’t know what to do except stare—regarding all six feet plus, black shirt and dark jeans of him like he was the single answer to all her unsolved problems. In scary form, Hydra had taken someone faint in her mind and found a real-life version with muscles and transparent strength and a distinct jawline.

They actually did it; they had matched her.

They could’ve at least given her a name.

“You’re new here.”

Jemma gaped—his voice and those words not at all what she expected. Then again, this was no fairytale. This was Hydra.

“I… yes.”

“You ever do this before?” he asked, his eyes glancing at the two-way mirror and then returning to her.

“I’m sorry?”

Jemma watched him exhale, the way his tongue darted out to lick his lips. Her pulse throbbed at the base of her throat. He looked at her like no one else did around here, and she shuddered.

“The bond,” he said. “It doesn’t always… take. We’re matched, so we’re compatible, but the bond is another level. We won’t know it worked until it does.”

“How do we know if it worked?”

He smiled softly; Jemma’s stomach flipped. “Trust me, we’ll know.”

She didn’t trust him, though. Jemma didn’t know anything about him. Minutes ago, he had been nothing but a figment of her imagination, a nice dream she thought about when she allowed herself to. It mattered less that they had been matched when she remembered they were two strangers told by their superiors to arrive at this location on this date during this time. Her loyalties to science told her nothing about this situation could be true.

So no, she did not trust him. She didn’t even know his name.

“This might hurt,” he said a split second before his hand took ahold of hers.

Jemma gasped.

Her skin burned; her body felt like crackling electricity. Somewhere in her abdomen, a part of her was stretched and pulled and squeezed to a limit she never thought possible to withstand. Everything firing on all cylinders, she tried to retract from his touch, but he held on tighter.

“Don’t,” he told her, clutching her like his life depended on it. Jemma looked at him like he was crazy—a twitch in his jaw the only discernible indication of his pain while she was nearly doubled over.

It hurt. It hurt like hell. But when the wave of agony subsided, she knew with indisputable evidence that he had been right. There was no doubt, no complicated answer. The proof was in her soul, in her weakened legs that buckled before he wrapped an arm around her waist and murmured, “I got you.”

Inhaling, Jemma subconsciously leaned into him until her forehead hit his shoulder.

It worked.

Her mind spun at all that this meant, at the feeling of completeness she didn’t know she had been missing. There was something more inside of her—a deep-seated, unyielding, irreversible kind of something more so innate now that Jemma wondered how she had ever gone without.

He was that something more.

Jemma was acutely aware of their current closeness, his hand on her hip. She didn’t want him to let go anymore, and that response thrilled and terrified her.

“Grant,” he said, and she knew. She knew like she knew the slant and edges of her handwriting, like she knew the periodic table, like she knew her own name. He—Grant—was a stranger, but everything about him now, whatever she would learn, was somehow already familiar.

“Jemma.”

They were given a minute—one minute of semi-privacy to catch their breaths and absorb the presence of their connection still new and raw and strengthening—before two men burst into the room and broke the moment of vulnerability. One Jemma recognized as Bakshi, Dr. Lingenfelter’s assistant or supervisor or whoever; the other one regarding Grant only she didn’t know.

“Congratulations, kid. Finally got your insurance policy,” the latter said, clapping a hand on Grant’s shoulder. She watched him stiffen—the hand on her dropping back to his side. “Now that you have the rest of your life to make googly eyes at her, can we get back to work?”

The jarring tone snapped Jemma back into reality, and in front of her, she didn’t see the man who had kept her from falling to the floor after their soulbond formed but rather one of those unfeeling soldiers that comprised the quintessential Hydra image. And then she remembered, even though he was a part of her now and forever, she still didn’t know a thing about him.

“Wait,” she said, curling her hands into fists before they could reach out for Grant.

Her heart raced—hadn’t stopped racing—watching him leave so suddenly.

It leapt out of her chest when he glanced back at her.

 

 

 

“Is this really necessary?”

Another room, another interrogation, and Jemma’s irritation began to show. The knot in her shoulders refused to loosen while she sat facing Bakshi and answered his all too invasive queries regarding her soulbond. Jemma couldn’t answer half his questions because she just didn’t know.

Yes, she wanted to work. Yes, she was open to marriage. No, she did not know Grant’s opinion on the matter. And no, they had not discussed the subject considering they had been together for a handful of minutes before being separated.

Jemma was sure Bakshi didn’t have a soulbond because if he did, he would know that they didn’t make people telepathic.

“Agent Ward has previously stated that he intends for you to live with him, is that correct?” he asked, looking between some documents and her. Jemma, as surprised as she was at the news, could neither confirm nor deny. “And I see here that he has already exercised his right as first point of contact over you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Well, then, that should settle it,” he concluded. “After reviewing both your test results, Hydra has acknowledged your bond. And given Agent Ward’s ratified requests and record as well as your short tenure here, I can officially release you to his custody. Congratulations. You are free to go.”

 

 

 

It was an absolute joy to leave the Hydra facility for two reasons: one, she—if she had understood Bakshi correctly—was no longer in their devilish system; and two, Grant stood outside waiting for her. The strain in her body loosened, and Jemma once again felt a type of wholeness she had never known to exist.

She didn’t envision this kind of quiet, though. A man with his soul attached to hers and here they sat in his car in awkward silence. There was no storybook ending to anticipate when this was just the beginning. Jemma was moving in because apparently he had requested it, because that was what was expected of her, because that was what people like them were supposed to do.

Their lives raced ahead with little abandon, yet it seemed like they were moving in slow motion.

Car horns blared as a vehicle sped into the intersection they were driving through, and Jemma lurched against her seatbelt when Grant stomped on the brake to avoid impact.

She almost laughed.

Down idle streets where her hectic heartbeat abated, Grant covered her hand with his and murmured, “You’ll be okay.”

 

 

 

His place was empty but well kept perhaps because it was seldom inhabited. The adjoining living room and kitchen appeared as sterile as her former labs. Jemma looked around at the nothingness of it all before her eyes settled back on him. This was where their new life started—a place he had no interest in adorning.

“It’s not much,” he said, the indirect admission confirming her suspicions. He was a man, attached to his job and now attached to someone. “But you can do what you want with it.”

“You expect me to become a housewife?” she blurted out to her embarrassment and yet indignation. Grant, however, remained unperturbed despite the accusation. His gaze gave nothing away in the tense space between them. And Jemma, for all her five-foot-four self, braved the scrutiny with equal vigor.

“You really have no idea, do you,” he said.

“Idea about what?”

“You. Me. Us.” He punctuated the last word like a physical blow, waking up all her senses and putting her on high alert.

How disconcerting it was to feel this way—for a perfect stranger to conjure such emotion from her and hold elusive information about their connection captive. Jemma was unaware. Standing in someone else’s apartment that she had in a split second deemed more comforting than living under Hydra’s nose, she was still in the dark.

“I’ve done this two times,” he confessed.

“What, you’ve brought two girls home before?”

The corners of his lips lifted ever the slightest, and it was wholly unfair how simple that act made her feel. Like that was what she was meant to do. Like her degrees paled in comparison to the victory of putting a smile on his face.

“If it makes you feel better, I’ve never brought anyone here.” Oddly, it did. “But I meant the bond. The process. I’ve been matched twice before.”

Jemma swallowed and averted her gaze. Soulbond or not, no girl dreamt of being told that she wasn’t the first choice but rather the consolation prize. And despite understanding that she had been a cog in the machine for Hydra, a means to an end once her parents signed her away, the revelation that she was Grant’s third struck her with inexplicable hurt and disappointment.

“It’s not like that.” His voice grew quiet; she inhaled. “The first girl… we were matched, but it was only on paper. The bond never took. Or if it did, it withered in seconds.”

She watched as he scrubbed a hand over his face—an action Jemma knew she shouldn’t find so fascinating. But it was. Everything about him was enthralling.

“And the second?”

“Less than twenty-four hours,” he told her. “When the bond formed, I was immediately put on a major assignment. High-value target. They had to abort and turn the plane around when I told them halfway to Venice that it was gone.”

“How did you know it was gone?”

“Because I felt it.” His words were emphatic—as strong and determined as his steps towards her were. “Like I can feel it right now. You. The part of you fused to me. You have no idea…”

No, she did not. She had absolutely no clue. Jemma didn’t understand any of this except for the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago she was single and at the mercy of Hydra and now she was looking up to the man she had bonded with for answers regarding her future.

But the way he stared at her gave Jemma butterflies in her stomach. They were inches apart now. Her cheeks grew warm. Her heart thundered in her chest. She was nervous around him; it was that simple. What made matters complicated, though, were all the reasons Grant made her go weak at the knees.

“You never answered my question,” she murmured.

“I thought you’d like it better here than with... them.” He licked his lips. “I thought you would prefer to live in a place where they couldn’t bother you.”

“I can’t stay here forever,” she protested. “You can’t expect me to—”

“I’m not asking you to.” His jaw set. “But I am telling you that this is for your benefit. You want to stay here with me. You have to.”

“Why? What are you going to do with me?”

He froze; Jemma could see that. His body went rigid—straightening like it had when the man came into the room after their bond had formed and proceeded to take him away. Grant’s stricken expression twisted her gut, and instantly she was filled with mortification and regret from her outburst.

His voice was soft again when he spoke, and Jemma felt its all-consuming power from head to toe when he told her exactly what he was going to do.

“Protect you.”

 

 

 

Taking the sole bed in the apartment was a bad idea. No, it was quite possibly the worst idea Jemma had ever agreed to.

She had tried to argue that the bedroom was rightfully his, but he had refused, said something about sleeping in worse places than his own couch, and effectively ended all her fears about what type of relationship this was and how fast it would be moving.

Still, it was three in the morning, and Jemma doubted she would be getting much sleep on his mattress. Not when she kept inhaling this foreign but familiar scent with every breath she took.

It was him—Grant, in the other room but somehow surrounding her. The faint yet undeniable smell of him enveloped her all over. And when everything about the situation screamed uncomfortable and should have her running for the hills, Jemma found herself burrowing deeper into the bed sheets to revel in this new sensation.

She could drown in here. She could agree to his imploration. She could break her resolve and never leave. It could be that easy when she was safely cocooned in his lingering aroma.

Jemma rolled onto her side, tucked a hand under his pillow, and sighed.

Worst idea ever.

 

 

 

He startled her awake in the morning. After managing a couple hours of sleep, Jemma woke up with alert eyes and panic—raising her head to assess her surroundings only to lie back down when she remembered the day that would forever change her life.

Still, the shuffling inside the apartment concerned her enough that she rubbed her eyes and got out of bed to check on the commotion. It was only Grant, she thought. It had to be since he all but confirmed that no one else came around here.

When she opened the bedroom door, he was right there like they had simultaneously moved to meet each other at their current point of convergence. Jemma blushed at the way he looked at her then—a fleeting moment of amusement, intrigue, and dare she say it, attraction.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, slipping past her to enter his room.

“What’s going on?”

“I have to go,” he informed, pulling open drawers to get what he needed.

Jemma stared at him—absolutely dumbfounded at the sight and admission. “What?”

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since they met, since forming their bond, since the rights to her being had transferred from one terrifying organization to a single man working for that exact party. No one had cared to ask about her; they only acted and rationalized that their behavior was in her best interest.

He had said he would protect her. Leaving sounded a lot like the opposite.

“Where are you going?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

No, she didn’t really know. For all her genius, Jemma didn’t know much of anything right now. Nobody had the decency to inform her of just what her life had become in the past couple of days. And as criminal and loathsome as their reputation was, Hydra still remained elusive as ever.

“And how long will you be gone?”

He zipped up his bag on the bed, the very one she had tossed and turned on when she couldn’t handle the way the scent of his sheets made her feel. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon.” Jemma couldn’t tell if his pause afterward was to digest the fact that someone else had been in his room when he claimed to have never brought anyone home before or if he was just checking off a mental to-do list. Either way, Grant didn’t dwell and brushed past her stagnant form to return to the living room.

Exasperated, she stormed after him. “Can you… please— just stop being one of their soldiers right now and answer my questions?”

His head turned to look back at her, and for a moment, Jemma feared the worst for stepping out of bounds. Instead, she was met with a simple expression—patient, maybe, and searching. For what, she didn’t know. She was an open book compared to the enigmatic circles he continued to run around her.

“Take a look at this when you get the chance,” he said, gesturing in the direction of a manila folder on the breakfast bar.

“What is it?”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you ask a lot of questions?”

Jemma crossed her arms over her chest. Yes, they had. And if people didn’t start giving her answers, she was sure going to have a hell of a lot more of them.

“Take a look at it, okay?” he repeated. “Just… don’t make any decisions until I come back.”

“And when will that be?”

He sighed. “Remember what I told you yesterday?”

She had been told a lot of things—receiving a match, creating a bond, Grant feeling the piece of her inside of him. Jemma shivered at that last thought before she finally caught up with his logic.

Hydra’s gift to their employees with newly minted bonds appeared to be sending them away. Jemma didn’t need two PhDs to know how wrong and dangerous that was.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. And somehow, Jemma knew that he was addressing her fears regarding their soulbond instead of offering perfunctory words of comfort. The notion left her wonderstruck. “Stay here, if you can. They can never hurt you here.”

“Can’t they?”

“Jemma.” She shuddered at the sound of her name, at the way he said it—the absolute certainty in his voice that she felt in her core. “You will always be safe here. They can never come in.”

He gave her a onceover and another long stare before nodding and turning to leave. And something fluttered inside of her.

It was as if the bond had gone aflame while she watched him grab his jacket and shoulder his backpack. Their fused souls kicked to life and screamed as it sensed their separation. They couldn’t be parted, no. But whether this still tender connection was strong enough to withstand the distance was her concern.

Jemma didn’t want to be another failed match on his list. She didn’t think she could take it if the part of him she held disappeared.

They barely knew each other, and yet the thought of losing him was too much.

“Wait,” she rasped, lurching forward to where he stood in front of the open door. She didn’t know what she was doing, didn’t know what to do. Jemma didn’t understand any of her emotions anymore—how she could feel so attached to someone she had just met. The push and pull war between head and soul overwhelmed her, and yet it felt like she couldn’t get enough.

His hand clasped over her wrist, and she shivered. Jemma looked up at him and this time saw not the Hydra agent but the guy that glanced back at her in the room where they bonded before the man had pushed him out. He leaned in like he was going to kiss her, and her breath hitched in anticipation wondering whether it was too early for such intimacy between strangers or far too late when a piece of themselves lived inside the other.

His forehead touched hers and sent her abuzz before he murmured, “It’s okay.” This was no kiss, but somehow it rendered the same effect. Jemma went dizzy with the way he made her feel.

Her lips parted trying to urge words out of her throat, but it was useless. Nothing she could say would articulate how she felt. All the good, bad, scary, and confused parts were jumbled into one—one whole entity, representing two.

Jemma exhaled, closed her eyes, and fully basked in the sensation of completeness before she had to part with it for however long it would take for him to come back to her. And he would.

“You’ll be okay,” Grant told her.

She would hold him to that.


End file.
